so let me see if i get this clear the nuggets let two of their best defensive players, if not best, walk in camby and najera, sell their first round pick in a semi-deep draft to the bobcats (who in turn draft Hibbert a decent defensive C) and then go and re-sign an all offense knucklehead. hopefully they didnt overpay but if i were a nuggets fan i would be upset at the direction of this team. I understand they need to move some big contracts around but they need to move AI if they feel the melo/AI tandem wont work
You're right about these points expect that the Bobcats signed Ajinca. Hibbert was picked by the Pacers.
The team has given up on this coming year and is looking longer term. They are re-loading and want to bounce back in 09. IMO, that's why they didn't bother to replace George Karl, who everybody knows should be fired.
The Camby thing has been beaten to death, so I'm just going to ignore it. As for needing to move AI, what makes you think they're not? And the deal is around MLE money. More with incentives.
I think a lot of people are underrating how much Smith has improved over the last couple of seasons. For a guy that was known as a poor shooter early in his career, he has probably made one of the biggest turnarounds in the entire league. He is actually lights out at this point. Statistically, one of the best shooters in the league last season. Check out his short chart from 07-08: I've only seen a couple of shot charts that compare to Smith's and they were for players like Steve Nash and Mike Miller.
For further reference, these are Nash's (by far, the best I've seen) and McGrady's shot charts from 07-08: It's pretty clear that J.R. Smith is a lethal offensive player at this point. I wouldn't complain one bit if we had the new and improved Smith as an offensive spark off the bench.
He's a bench player that comes in for 15-20 minutes a game to give you instant offense. He is used perfectly, in my opinion, by the Nuggets. The Nuggets do a lot of things wrong but the way they use Smith, in my opinion, is not one of them.
QFT!! The Nuggets know what they are getting with him. Also, he is so young, I think he will develop into a better all around player the more run he gets, maybe not so much defense but definitely play making should improve. I'm happy for him, he deserves to get paid and I've seen him have some Kobe-esque moments in Denver wear I was just jaw-dropped open wow'd. Here he is dropping 43 (career) in a loss
T-Mac needs to learn to take way better shots so he has a better chance of making them. Hopefully with Ron as a 3rd offensive option t-mac can raise his percentages.
I have the exact same hope. T-Mac should be a 50-plus% guy from the field with his scoring ability if he is taking the right shots. Adding another offensive weapon in Artest could conceivably improve his efficiency if the defense is forced to pay less attention to him and he takes advantage of it. He should also have less pressure to score when the offense is struggling which should, in turn, reduce the number of forced shots he takes. In general, if McGrady took more shots from 12-18 feet out and, of course, drove to the basket more, he would become a much more efficient scorer.
Still wondering why nobody offered him a contract, I mean with his superb offense Im surprised that we didnt even try to make a move for him. But yes i know he maybe a knucklehead and we already have a few on our team...
One of the things TMac (and to an extent, Rafer) did last season was taking "leftover" shots when the offense couldn't generate anything better (and ususally, when the clock is running down). These two tended to get the leftover shots more than others because (1) when the offense fails, you are usually left with the ball in the hand of a perimeter player, rather than a post player, trying to create something, and (2) Tracy and Rafer are the two guys who can at least get some kind of shot off-- and give the team a chance in terms of the shot going in or opportunity for a rebound-- without turning the ball over as the clock runs down. Rafer shooting a floater or Tracy chucking a stop and pop contested fadeaway J is not ideal, but these are better than a 24-second violation or a turnover resulting from, for example, trying to force the ball into Yao or Scola in the paint or having Battier or Head try to creat something off the dribble. In any case, while Rafer and Tracy had bad FG%, generally, I believe the the offense was more efficient with these two than without. Hopefully, the Rockets offense, with the addition of Artest and Barry and one more year under Adelman, will be better at generating shots they want and there will be less possessions in which Tracy or Rafer had to make something happen with 5 or 6 second on the clock.
There is some truth to what you say, but Tracy takes a number of dumb shots without regard to the shotclock, such as 3-pointers off fast breaks, difficult contested jumpers right inside the 3-point line, etc, that bail out defenders. These far outnumber his late in the shotclock attempts. The fact is his shot selection is very poor and is the primary reason for the low FG%. He obviously helps the offense for a number of reasons, but his lazy shot selection is a drag.
I know we are straying away from the topic here but I am wondering if Barry will have a bigger influence on this team than simply hitting 3-pointers and making good decisions on the court. I wonder what kind of insight he will bring over from one of the more finely-tuned systems in the league.
Wow. He hit an amazing 28 shots from mid-range the whole season... How'd you compare - looked at the colors?
You try to make me out to be stupid yet make you make one of the stupidest arguments I've heard in a while around here. While I do agree he could increase his mid-range game, most players don't perfectly distribute their shots across all areas of the court. Smith's distribution actually isn't that uncommon for an outside shooter. With the players on that team, he is often asked to spread the floor and shoot the 3, something he clearly does extremely well. He also made 126 shots at a 57% clip from under the basket. That's more than Nash and not too far off from McGrady's number. Considering he plays less than 20 mpg, he is doing a pretty good job at mixing it up and taking it to the rim. And, for the record, I did notice that he wasn't shooting a lot from mid-range when I was putting together the image but I didn't think anybody would be dumb enough to make a big deal about it considering how efficient he was, overall, and that he was also getting to the basket. As far as how I evaluated Smith's shot chart, I looked at his numbers from last season them compared them to his past performance as well as to the charts of many other players around the league. I've probably looked at a couple hundred different players shot charts at this point. It's pretty cool stuff. I have a question for you: How'd you come up with that stupid post - just figured you were smarter than you really are? Or, just wanted to try to put somebody else down to make you feel better about yourself? Maybe, you figured that because I predicted that the Rockets wouldn't make the playoffs last season that I can't possible have anything valid to say. At least I put an ounce of thought into my post. Who's the idiot?
